San Rafael's City Council Monday night denied an appeal by a Terra Linda homeowner who asked the city to keep a cellphone antenna from being installed near his home.

"I am the only person in the city of San Rafael with a telephone transmitter in my back yard. I don't feel special about that," David Carey of Penny Royal Lane told the council members during the meeting.

The ExteNet Systems wireless antenna is part of a project that runs from San Rafael to Novato. The project will allow wireless phone companies to extend service to these neighborhoods.

The antenna proposed for Penny Royal Lane is one of five that will be attached to existing poles that also carry AT&T and PG&E wires. The antennas will go on top of the poles and are two feet tall by 14 inches wide.

The pole is located on public right of way.

"There were two installations in peoples' yards. The nice people at ExteNet came up with another one for Hibiscus Way," said Carey, who was appealing an action by the Planning Commission.

The antenna is to be placed on a pole in the right of way to the side of the home he shares with his wife Nancy Carroll.

Carey was referring to ExteNet's plan to move one of the other proposed locations, away from a residence on Hibiscus Way. That change was requested by the Planning Commission because a neighboring homeowner objected.

That antenna will now be placed along Manuel Freitas Parkway.

One other antenna will be on Las Gallinas Avenue on the side of the road, another will be in the median strip on Las Gallinas, and a fourth will be on Del Ganado Road in the median strip.

"We actually had an option of moving (the Hibiscus Way) antenna. But there were no options that were any better with regard to the antenna on Penny Royal," said Patti Ringo, director of municipal systems for ExteNet Systems. "Any other location would have been in front of someone's house."

Carey expressed concerns about the health effects of the antenna, but the Federal Communications Commission has jurisdiction over this aspect, Kraig Tambornini, the city's senior planner, told the council. The council's only jurisdiction is aesthetics, he said.

Mayor Gary Phillips, who joined the council in its unanimous vote, stressed that the council is precluded from considering health issues.

"We have no jurisdiction in matters perhaps significant to the appellant," he said.